Lavalamp

Lavalamp performs automation via a rule, which involves an amout of items. Rules are created in the rule editor, and can be turned on or off from the main lavalamp window. Note that rules can control things purely on your computer, or can interface to the 'real world'.

Rules are 'event-driven' - most items take a 'trigger' input, which will tell the module to do its work. For example, take the 'check email' item.

This ruleItem will check your email every time it is triggered, and send an event if new email is present in your mailbox. We will use it to create an example rule.

We first open the rule editor window. Down the left-hand side is a tree of the available items. We double-click the 'check email' item - under the 'Internet' category, and our new item is made.

We need to trigger this item somehow, though. Since it makes sense to check our email periodically, we also make an interval timer, available under 'starts'. We also need something to do when new email is found - let's show a little box on the desktop. For this, we use 'show desktop message', under 'notifiers'.

Next, we wire up our items. Do this by clicking on the arrow icons on each. Note that, when you hover the mouse over an arrow, a description of the function of it appears in the bottom of the window.
When creating wires, you can click to make a 'corner' in the wire.

Now we need to configure the email checker with our email login details. Do this by right-clicking on the email checker item, and selecting 'options'. After this, right-click on our desktop notifier, and select 'Options'. Fill out the notifier as you like - this is how mine is:

Once you've done this, you can click 'Test run' to see your rule in action! Note that if anything is misconfigured, a red 'cross' icon will appear in the misconfigured ruleItem. Click on it to get details of the error.